Damen is seeing rising mission scopes and has ships scheduled as much as 2030 based on the 2023 Drydock and Refurbishment Report by Cruise Industry News.
“We have exact dates up to 2030 already,” mentioned Rogier van der Laan, international product supervisor cruise upkeep and improve companies at Damen.
“We are seeing bookings far out. There are three back-to-back ships scheduled in 2025, and one is an especially huge conversion,” van der Laan added.
Damen accomplished a number of tasks in 2022 as properly. Among 2022 highlights was the Emerald Princess drydocking in Rotterdam, the Seabourn Odyssey in Curacao in addition to the Celebrity Xpedition, and the winter conversion of the Maasdam into the Renaissance for French start-up CFC.
The former Maasdam arrived at Damen’s Brest, France, facility in October, entered drydock in November and is scheduled to begin crusing within the spring.
The yard will deal with metal work, upkeep and extra, and assist inside contractors with logistics, container shipments and extra.
“With the supply chain problems, logistics can be a challenge. For the yard, it’s not a problem, but getting supplies from the manufacturers can be a big issue and the price is going up everywhere,” he mentioned.
Overall, van der Laan mentioned the outlook was “very good” for the corporate’s yards, with its European services taking care of ships of any dimension and its Curacao drydock completely suited to smaller ships and expedition ships transferring between the polar areas.
Across the business, van der Laan mentioned that Tier III updates for ships can be a pattern in coming years, permitting them to sail in delicate areas.
Planning has tightened up with altering budgets and mission scopes from cruise clients, that means 5 to 6 months out as an alternative of a 12 months for a mission plan.
“But we are flexible. It’s always changing,” van der Laan mentioned. “There can be change orders or unforeseen steel work, and we can do that.”